What if only the red and blue bars are kept and the black ones in the middle are taken out? It would roughly halve the number of bars that robots would have to cross. It would still reduce the speed of the cycles and reduce the damage to the robots.
This game was a lot of fun to watch! The only thing I don’t like is that it’s hard to tell “who’s winning”. That’s just a side effect I think of any game where game pieces are recycled onto the field and there’s a dependence on sensors for the score. Unfortunately it’s been that way for a # of years now and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Additionally, a year where that wasn’t the case is also easily the least exciting game to watch.
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It’s the best game since 2014 at least, 2013 maybe, and maybe ever (my direct knowledge only goes back to 2004 though). We have a lot of good and great robots out here; don’t take 'em apart, folks, we will figure out a way to play with them soon.
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This definitely benefits from hindsight and seeing robots actually play, but I think the GDC outlawing true full court shots was a mistake. Considering many teams could barely hit 1/5 from the wheel of fortune in late qual matches, I don’t think there would’ve been much harm in letting teams try from the Loading Zone. There’s also the added difficulty of having to shoot power cells through the Shield Generator.
Would’ve been neat to see if anyone wanted to commit to a very low percentage shot, just to try to gain game piece control. Might’ve added a bit more depth in “roles” for the game.
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They’re there to help keep the extra padding in place to prevent damage to the floor from falling robots.
This reason right here counters your claim. Right now, the reason to not turn around and shoot is the tech fouls. Remove that and it becomes valid to immediately shoot PCs across the field. The alliances that were being overwhelmed wouldn’t have been in a great place to take advantage of this. It just further helps shift the balance of a blowout. Hindsight says they made the right call outlawing those shots.
How about an optional power cell return that used track like mechanisms (similar to 2010) to return the power cells to the middle of the field somewhere. Would force teams to cycle the field more rather than the flooding strategy. I don’t know if flooding was ever really a problem, but it seemed like an unintentional game mechanic to me.
The 2 parallel black bars divide the area into the Red and Blue Rendezvous Points. That’s rather important to know for scoring a Park. Also several rules (e.g. G14, G15, G15-A) are based on which Rendezvous Point the Robot is in.
I don’t have a dog in the fight, but as a hypothetical, the red/blue bars could be replaced with tape. Tape defines each of the trench runs and the protected triangles in front of the Power Ports and Loading Zones.
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Would black tape be sufficiently visible?
Tape would take out the bumps… and the bumps are part of the challenge
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Report at LA was that the bars kept the truss legs from sliding in, at least the red and blue ones did.
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In my earlier post, I suggested taking out half of the steel bars so that there would still be a challenge and the damage to wheels would be reduced.
@Ryan_Swanson, first off, thank YOU for making such a GP, non toxic, and friendly Chief Delphi post.
Second, yeah, GDC did an amazing job designing this years game. You could tell from the start of week 1 that this game was going to be really fun to watch, with close scores, high level level driving, competitive robots and more. They truly put a lot of thought and effort into designing this game.
They hit the nail on the head and drove it home.
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